American Lutheranism, Volume 2 / The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General Council, United Synod in the South)

by F. Bente

GENERAL SYNOD'S ATTITUDE.

66. Ignoring Platform, But Endorsing Its Theology.—No formal action was taken by the conventions of the General Synod with respect either to the Definite Platform itself or its authors, abettors, and endorsers. Apart from the doctrinal indifference prevailing within the General Synod also among the conservatives, this was chiefly due to the articles published by Krauth, Jr., in defense of the General Synod in the Missionary. "Silently," says Dr. Spaeth, "yet no less surely, the brethren gave the most unmistakable evidence that the views therein expressed met their concurrence." (1, 409.) However, Krauth himself, in advocating mutual toleration, merely acted on the old principles of the General Synod. His policy was in keeping with its unionistic traditions of "agreeing to disagree and not to settle disputed points, but to omit them and declare them free—quieta non movere et mota quiescere!" Well satisfied with the course of the General Synod at its conventions in 1857 and 1859, the Observer wrote: "The convention at Pittsburgh has strengthened the bond of our union and shown that no question of doctrine or discipline can disrupt us. We are one and inseparable. Our union is based on mutual concession. We have learned a lesson which our fathers could not learn: to give and to take." (L. u. W. 1859, 285.) Officially and directly, then, the General Synod neither approved nor condemned the Platform. Nor could she consistently have taken a different course, as Schmucker had but acted on previous suggestions of Synod herself. In 1844 the Maryland Synod had appointed a committee to prepare an "Abstract," which, in a way, was to serve as a substitute for the Augsburg Confession. This "Abstract," though not adopted by the Maryland Synod, was a forerunner of the Definite Platform. Schmucker, says Dr. Spaeth, "was so much pleased with the 'Abstract' that he referred to it again and again in his lectures and articles, and even made his students commit to memory its principal statements. In an article on the 'Vocation of the American Lutheran Church' (Ev. Review II, 510) Schmucker said: 'With the exception of several minor shades of doctrine, in which we are more symbolic than Dr. Baugher, we could not ourselves, in so few words, give a better description of the views taught in the seminary [Gettysburg] than that contained in his 'Abstract of the Doctrines and Practises.'" (1, 114.) Also the General Synod, in 1845, at Philadelphia, following in the steps of the Maryland Synod, authorized a committee to formulate the doctrines and usages of the American Lutheran Church. Schmucker, then, in preparing and publishing the Definite Platform, was certainly not so very much out of tune with the sentiments then prevailing in, and encouraged by, the General and some of the District Synods. Consistently they could not rebuke Schmucker without condemning themselves. Accordingly, the convention of the General Synod in 1857, at Reading, took formal action neither with respect to Schmucker, nor the Platform, nor the synods which had endorsed the Platform. And while the motion of Schmucker that the Board (which had published Mann's "Plea") should not publish any writings on the existing controversies was adopted, the motion of Kurtz for a "liberal platform" found no support. (L. u. W. 1857, 218.) But, while painfully avoiding any reference to the Platform as such, the General Synod more than tolerated its theology. The convention of 1859 cordially admitted the Melanchthon Synod, which charged the Augustana with teaching the alleged errors of regeneration by Baptism, of the real presence, private confession and absolution, and the denial of the divine institution of the Sunday. At Lancaster, 1862, Synod evaded a deliverance on the question whether the Augsburg Confession contains the errors with which it was generally charged; indirectly, however, it affirmed the question by electing B. Kurtz as President. (L. u. W. 1862, 217.) In 1864 the Franckean Synod was admitted with a confession of her own making, from which the distinctive Lutheran doctrines were eliminated. And in order to conciliate the protesting conservatives, the General Synod in the same year passed the resolution, adopted 1856 by the Pittsburgh Synod, which served the contradictory purposes of condemning Lutheran doctrines plainly taught in the Augustana, and, at the same time, acquitting the Confession of harboring these doctrines. Thus the General Synod, though unwilling to commit herself to the Platform as such, directly and indirectly approved of its theology.

67. Admitting Melanchthon Synod.—In 1857, on the principle of "elective affinity," and for the purpose of resisting the confessional trend in the General Synod, and encouraging and strengthening the Platform men, the Melanchthon Synod was organized in the territory of the Maryland Synod, under the leadership of B. Kurtz. In its "Declaration of Faith" this Synod stated: "II. We believe that the fundamental doctrines of the Word of God are taught in a manner substantially correct in the doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession: 1. The divine inspiration, authority, and sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures. 2. The unity of the Godhead and the trinity of Persons therein. 3. The deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. 4. The utter depravity of human nature in consequence of the Fall. 5. The incarnation of the Son of God and His work of atonement for sinners of mankind. 6. The necessity of repentance and faith. 7. The justification of a sinner by faith alone. 8. The work of the Holy Spirit in the conversion and sanctification of the sinner. 9. The right and duty of private judgment in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. 10. The immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, the judgment of the world by Jesus Christ, with the eternal blessedness of the righteous and the eternal punishment of the wicked. 11. The divine institution and perpetuity of the Christian ministry, and the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. But while we thus publicly avow and declare our convictions in the substantial correctness of the fundamental doctrines of the Augsburg Confession, we owe it to ourselves and to the cause of evangelical truth to disavow and repudiate certain errors which are said by some to be contained in said Confession: 1. The approval of the ceremonies of the mass; 2. private confession and absolution; 3. denial of the divine obligation of the Christian Sabbath; 4. baptismal regeneration; and 5. the real presence of the body and blood of the Savior in the Eucharist. With these exceptions, whether found in the Confession or not, we believe and retain the entire Augsburg Confession, with all the great doctrines of the Reformation." (L. u. W. 1858, 28.) In spite of this attitude toward the Augustana the General Synod, in 1859, on motion of Krauth, Jr., passed the resolution: "Resolved, That we cordially admit the Melanchthon Synod, and … we would fraternally solicit them to consider whether a change, in their doctrinal basis, of the paragraph in regard to certain alleged errors would not tend to the promotion of mutual love, and the furtherance of the great objects for which we are laboring together." (Proceedings 1859, 11.) The vote for the admission of the un-Lutheran Synod, registering the victory of the liberals and the defeat of the conservatives, stood 98 to 26, the entire delegation of the Pennsylvania Ministerium and the three Scandinavian delegates being recorded in the negative. Without further protest on the part of the conservatives "the credentials of the [Melanchthon Synod] delegates were then presented and their names entered upon the roll of Synod." (12.) Confirming their doctrinal position, the Melanchthon Synod, in 1860, by formal resolution, approved of a sermon delivered by B. Kurtz in which he denounced baptismal regeneration as "a part of papistical superstition" and the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in, with, and under the bread and wine as "consubstantiation," and "just as untenable and absurd as transubstantiation." (L. u. W. 1860, 384.) Considering the Constitution of the General Synod together with the fact that the Platform synods had not been molested, the admission of the Melanchthon Synod, advocated by Krauth, cannot be construed as inconsistent. It must, however, be regarded as an indirect approval, on the part of the General Synod, of the Platform theology. Dr. Mann remarked, "he doubted not that there was much good in the constitution of the Melanchthon Synod; but he would not eat poisoned bread, though there was much good flour in it." (L. u. W. 1859, 196.)

68. Synod's Position Explained.—In 1859 the General Synod resolved that S. W. Harkey publish, in German as well as in English, the sermon delivered by him as President of Synod at the opening of the convention. (Proceedings, 48.) Harkey was an opponent of the Platform on the order of Brown and Conrad. In 1852, in his inaugural address as professor of theology at the Illinois State University in Springfield, he had declared that we must take a firm foothold in the Augsburg Confession as a whole without binding the consciences of men to its unessential individual determinations; and that the doctrine of the symbols on the Sacraments belongs to the points concerning which they had agreed to differ. (Lutheraner 9, 99.) Reaffirming this position in the sermon, endorsed by the General Synod in 1859, Harkey said: "We want love as much as orthodoxy, yes, a thousand times more than what some men call orthodoxy." (6.) "The General Synod cannot and does not require perfect unity or uniformity in all points of doctrine." (10.) "The General Synod adopted it [Augustana] as to fundamentals, and to these she requires unqualified subscription." (12.) "Objections have been urged against the expression 'fundamental doctrines,' as meaning one thing in the mouth of one man and a different thing in that of another—that to some everything is fundamental and to others only a few points. Now I cannot reply to this at length, at present, but have only to say in few words that there are fundamental doctrines in Christianity, and everybody not spoiled by his theory or philosophy knows what they are [the doctrines held in common by all evangelical denominations]. Indeed, I feel like sternly rebuking the infidelity which lies concealed beneath this objection, as if Christians had not been able to determine, in eighteen hundred years, what are the fundamental, chief, or great doctrines of their holy religion. Down on all such quibbling! Others have objected to the words 'substantially correct,' as meaning anything or nothing, at pleasure. This, like the other objection, is a quibble. None can err here, unless it be wilfully…. The amount of the whole is, 'In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas.' This is as far as the General Synod has gone or could go; but it does not interfere with the liberty of the District Synods. Any District Synod may go beyond this, and adopt the Augsburg Confession in an unqualified manner; or it may state the points in which it dissents from it, and if not 'fundamental,' no objection can be made to its admission into the General Synod; but no body adopting a different Confession, or the Augsburg Confession less fully than as containing 'the fundamental doctrines of the Word of God in a manner substantially correct,' could be admitted into the union of the General Synod." (13.) "Does any one say doctrinal 'tares' are found in it, growing among the pure wheat of God's truth, and that he is anxious only 'to pluck up the tares'? I answer, 'Nay; lest while you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat with them.' Let the venerable Confession stand just as it is, especially since you are bound only to receive it as containing the fundamental truths of God's Word." (14.) "Cease, O! cease from your controversies and disputes about non-essential points of doctrine and practise, and labor with all your might for the conversion and salvation of immortal souls!" (27.) In agreement with Harkey, Dr. Reynolds had declared in the Evangelical Review, July, 1858, that within the General Synod every one was privileged either to reject or to accept the doctrines enumerated as errors by the Platform. (L. u. W. 1858, 274.) And prior to, and in agreement with, both, Krauth, Jr., had maintained in the Missionary, April 30, 1857, that such men as Schmucker and Kurtz formed a legitimate variety in the General Synod. (Spaeth, 1, 397.) "The Church in the United States," said Krauth, "wants neither Symbololatry nor Schism, neither a German Lutheranism, in an exclusive sense, nor an American Lutheranism, in a separatistic one, but an Evangelical Lutheranism broad enough to embrace both, and to make each vitalize and bless the other, and supply the mutual defects of each. She will abide by the essentials of her Scripture-doctrine and of her Christian life, but she will use her liberty to adapt herself to her new position on this continent. She will neither be juggled out of her faith by one set of operators, nor out of her freedom by another. She will hold fast that which she has, and those who strive to take her crown from her will be remembered only by their utter and ignominious failure. The General Synod cannot take a higher position as to doctrine than her present one; she cannot take a lower one; therefore she must remain where she is." (401.) "That Church, then, is not Evangelical Lutheran which officially rejects the Augsburg Confession, or officially rejects, or requires, directly or indirectly, on the part of its members, a rejection of the Augsburg Confession, or a connivance at such official rejection." (407.) Doctrinally, then, the General Synod, as such, had not advanced beyond the union letter of November, 1845. The scheme and dream of the New School men, however, of officially substituting a new confession for the Augustana was doomed to oblivion.